Lucas
could still remember that warm summer day in June eleven years earlier. What
should have been a happy, glorious day ended up being one of the worst days he
could remember. That was the day he quit caring.

No,
it was the day he started to quit caring. Actually quitting took... Oh, at
least a few years. It was like his will to care disappeared
in chunks. A piece here, another piece there, until one day you look around and
notice there's nothing left. Lucas lost a big piece of it when Jedidiah King
graduated from Mayville High School in 1997.

It
wasn't Jedidiah's fault for graduating. Jed couldn't help doing well in school,
and finishing high school and getting a diploma could only be looked at as a
good thing. And it wasn't the fact that he graduated that made it such a rotten
day for Lucas. It was what happened afterward. Jed's graduation signaled the
end of his four-year stay in Mayville and his return to Utah. Land of the Mormons. That's what made it such a bad day for
Lucas.

Lucas
loved Jedidiah. Really.Those boyish
good looks. Those twinkling blue eyes. That
mischievous smile. He liked the way there was a good Jed and a bad Jed,
and you never knew for sure which one was going to show up. And he was pretty
sure Jed loved him, too. He never actually said it, but you wouldn't exactly
expect high school boys to talk that way to each other. But there were other
things. Jed just seemed to naturally gravitate toward him at parties and stuff.
If no one was looking, they would secretly hold hands. Or steal a kiss. Or...
well, much, much more, as long as they knew no one was looking.

But
that could all be passed off as hormones. Or just plain old,
ordinary sexual curiosity. And Jed himself insisted that he was just
exploring and would eventually stop exploring, and stop sinning - the Mormon church considers any sexual activity outside of marriage to
be a sin, one requiring a confession to the bishop, and they especially frown
on sexual activity between people of the same sex. So Jed insisted that he was
just exploring, and would eventually stop sinning, confess his sins, and go on
to live a happy, normal Mormon life.

Not
that Lucas necessarily believed or disbelieved any of that. He understood his
friend's need to feel that he wasn't doing anything really wrong or immoral.
What he didn't understand was why churches in general, and Jed's church in
specific, felt the need to control the lives of their members so much. He
honestly felt that Jed would be happier outside of an organized religion, and
he honestly believed, or at least hoped, that one day that's the path Jed would
choose.

So
graduation brought the harsh glare of reality to Lucas's life when Jed actually
did choose all those things he said he was going to choose.

Jed
had stated, more than once, "Lucas, some things are just between you and
me. Okay?" And Lucas had agreed. "Some things" was understood by
both of them to mean anal sex. And Lucas didn't have anal sex with anyone but
Jed for the next four years. Not until after that terrible day in June. And he
was pretty sure Jed hadn't done it that way with anyone else, either. And that
was what convinced Lucas that Jed loved him just as much as he loved Jed.

When
Jed really did leave, and chose all those things he said he would, Lucas
couldn't help feeling slightly betrayed. That's why that day stood out to him
as one of the particularly bad ones in his life.

Lucas
rolled onto his side, trying not to think. He had work in the morning, and
needed to get some sleep. Thinking was keeping him from doing that. And now Jed
was back, and dressing like a girl. And looking like one, too. What was that
all about? Lucas, who never claimed to have much interest in girls since before
high school, couldn't help but see it as yet another form of Jed's betrayal.
Another reason not to trust anyone who made you fall
in love with them.

There
were signs of it. There was the thong panties incident when Jed was a sophomore
and Lucas was a senior. They'd been driving home from school and found the
discarded panties placed lewdly across a stop sign - some high school boys'
idea of a practical joke. It was possible they were left there as the trophy
from some successful sexual conquest. "Let's take them," said Jed,
getting out to retrieve them without waiting for any
discussion.

"What
are you doing to do with someone's panties?" asked Lucas as Jed got back
in the car. "They're probably filthy." he added. "With
disease."

Jed
held them up. This was one of those situations where you weren't sure if it was
good Jed or bad Jed that was talking. "It wouldn't be right to leave them
there," he said. "They might give somebody some impure thoughts.
Besides, they could cause a traffic accident. What if somebody didn't see the
stop sign because these were there? They don't look like they've been there
that long."

If
that had actually been Lucas's plan, the opportunity to do so was quickly
disappearing as they sped away from the deserted intersection.

"I
just thought they'd be fun to have," said Jed. "Have you ever seen a
girl's panties before? I mean up close like this?"

"No."

"Aren't
you ever curious? I mean... About what goes in them?"

"What
are you talking about?"

"You
know. Their vaginas and things."

"Things? What things?"

"I
don't know." Jed was blushing. "Their boobs, I guess."

Lucas
cast a sideways look at his friend. As far as he knew, Jed was as gay as he
was. He didn't seem to have any problem going down on a hard dick, or taking
Lucas up his ass, either. And he knew Jed had never so much as been on a date
with a girl, let alone to be thinking about their vaginas and boobs. Jed
noticed the look and blushed again. "Okay, take me back and I'll put them
back on the sign."

"It's
too late, now," said Lucas. "I'm not going back. You can just toss
them out the window."

But
Jed didn't toss them out the window. In fact he took them home, and washed them
in the sink. He was pretty sure he'd seen a Woolite
commercial on TV about washing your delicates and figured thong panties
qualified as delicates. In the commercial, they washed their delicates in the
sink, and although he didn't have any Woolite, he
figured bar soap was every bit as good. In fact, by the time he rinsed them out
and let them dry, they looked and smelled fresh and clean enough to...

Jed
didn't like to finish that thought. He knew from the moment he had jumped out
of Lucas's car why he wanted the panties. It was an urge he couldn't really
explain, even to himself. He hadn't done it often, but once in a while, when
his parents had left him alone, he'd snuck into his parents' room and tried on
some of his mom's underwear. Just for the kinkiness of doing it.

If
you asked him to explain, he'd probably tell you that he was just exploring
different facets of his sexuality. The same way making out with Lucas and
having sex with him was a way of exploring. Or when he'd done
it with Joey, his next door neighbor before that back in Utah before coming to
Mayville. It didn't mean anything. It certainly didn't mean he was gay.
And being curious what it would feel like to wear panties and other girl things
didn't mean he was a transvestite.

But
he was secretly wearing them a few days later when he and Lucas were messing
around with Katon Jedry. Katon loved sex games more than about anything he
could imagine. There had been a time when sex games with Jed and Lucas had
included Katon's two older brothers, Kyle and Kelly. But Kyle had turned
eighteen and moved away and Kelly had decided he was no longer interested in
having sex with boys. That left Katon, who didn't much care who he was playing
sex games with, as long as it was sex.

Jed
wanted to play strip poker. Lucas argued that they didn't have any playing
cards with them, but Jed instantly produced some. Lucas knew that Jed wasn't
particularly good at poker - he had a tendency to draw to hands he couldn't
really develop - and that he was usually reluctant to play the game whenever it
was suggested. So the fact that he was suggesting it and had come prepared with
cards made him realize his friend was up to something.

Not
surprisingly, Jed was losing. Although he didn't seem to be
losing on purpose. When he removed his shirt, leaving him with just his
pants and underwear, Jed looked a lot more nervous than Lucas would have
expected. Something is definitely going on, he thought.

That
something was revealed a few hands later when Jed tried to turn two pair into a
full-house and ended up losing to Lucas's three of a kind. "Take 'em off," taunted Katon, who was still at least three
hands away from revealing anything interesting. "Let's see what color your
unders are."

It
turned out they were red. Bright red. Fuck-me red, I believe,
is the technical term for that particular shade. With black
trim around the front panel, around the sides, and on the back, such as it was.
Being a thong, the panty did little to conceal what was underneath, and given
Jed's state of arousal they were having an even more difficult time of it.

"What
the...! He's wearing panties!" yelled Katon, who had a tendency to talk
louder than he needed to when he got excited.

"Shhh, keep it down," reminded Lucas, who was enjoying
an unobstructed view of Jed's bare butt.

"I
found them on a stop sign," said Jed, as if that explained how he ended up
wearing them.

The
game continued, with Jed soon losing again. Rather than make him take off the
panties, Lucas suggested that since they really weren't doing much to conceal
anything anyway, that he keep wearing them and, as a penalty for losing, suck
both of their dicks. Of course that meant the poker game was pretty much over
as Katon and Lucas both stripped off the rest of their clothes and moved so
that Jed could play with one of their dicks while he sucked the other and then
suck the one while he played with the other. Jed didn't want to admit it, even
to himself, but giving Lucas and Katon blow jobs while wearing panties had been
one of the biggest turn-ons of his high school life.

Another
incident happened later that year in the summer. Lucas really wasn't fond of
seeing Jed grow up so fast. If he had his way, he would have chosen to have Jed
stay forever the young, youthful looking boy that had rode with him into town
to get help that hot summer day two years earlier when Jed and his uncle had
been stranded on the side of the road, miles from the nearest phone, with a
broken down truck. That was the day he and Jed had first met. Jed had been just
a few weeks away from his fourteenth birthday then.

A
slow developer, Lucas looked young for his age. By the time he was 18 he at
least had some hair on his legs and under his arms, but he could pass for much younger.
He hadn't even started shaving yet. So when Jed started needing to shave, and
had just about as much body hair as Lucas, there was, of course, some minor
discomfort between them. One day, in an effort to make Lucas happy, Jed decided
to rid himself of all his secondary hair, shaving his legs, and underarms, and
everything else that seemed needlessly covered with hair. The result was a
smooth look that even Lucas had to admit was interesting and fun to touch.

"But
next time leave a little patch right here," said Lucas, touching the
smooth, hairless skin just above Jed's swollen penis."I think it looks
sexier if you have a little pubic hair."

Even
though Jed and Lucas traded places back and forth during anal sex, with both of
them sometimes giving and sometimes receiving, there was little doubt that Jed
looked to Lucas as being the more dominant partner. If only
because he was older. And even though the first time they had had sex
that way - it had been Lucas who had been on the bottom while Jed assumed the
top position - that was only because Jed's sphincter had refused to open up
wide enough to allow Lucas' dick to get inside. Eventually they had solved that
problem, but by then they were just as inclined to have Jed take the role of
top as they were to have Lucas take it.

With
all of his body hair gone, however, Jed felt different. More
vulnerable, or something.More in need of Luca's
protection. Later he would understand that removing all of his body hair
had caused him to feel more feminine, but for the moment, he just knew that he
wanted to be on the bottom while Lucas fucked him. And that's how they did it.

Later,
much, much later, when Lucas was in college and only saw Jed on weekends, and
Jed continued to shave most of his body hair other than the patch of pubic hair
Lucas had requested he keep, Jed once asked him, "If I was a girl, do you
think you would you still like me?"

And
Lucas allowed as how he might could.

I
mean, girls weren't totally out of the question, as far as he was concerned.
They just weren't as interesting, or attractive, as boys.

What
else can I tell you about high school?

For
that 1993-94 school year there was a tremendous battle over second place in the
Battle of the Bands competition. First place, of course, belonged to JKLM, the
band with Lucas on violin and guitar, Kyle Jedry on guitar and as lead singer,
Katon and Kelly Jedry on accordion and keyboard and as backup vocals, and Jed
on drums. The five of them talked of quitting school and going on tour
professionally.

No,
seriously, they did. Katon, the youngest of them, talked about it the most. He
was like that, always imagining how great life could be if only one little
thing could happen. And Lucas, the oldest, thought it was a pretty good idea,
too. He was convinced they just needed to make a few good connections and
they'd be all set. Jed, who was third oldest, or third youngest, depending how
you looked at it, was happy to believe them. He liked the idea of being a rock
star.

Kelly,
always the pessimist, was the lone voice of opposition. "We're good enough
to win the Battle of the Bands," he groused, "But that doesn't mean
we're going to be able to fill up arenas every night all across America. You
should all worry more about doing your homework than dreaming about getting
paid to play music."

"You're
just afraid we'll all be successful and have hundreds of girl friends while you
have to stay home and play with your pud," said
Katon.

At
that point Kyle would generally step in and separate his two younger brothers
before they started throwing punches at one another. Since he was the oldest of
the three, he felt a responsibility to be the voice of reason in their
discussions, fairly representing each side and helping each side to understand
what the other side was saying. "Yeah, we could," he said, "And
chances are we'd be pretty good. But we're going to need a good manager first,
and right now we don't got one. And a manager's going
to want to know what we've did and where we've played, and winning Battle of
the Bands is just a start. We gotta start doing a few
small shows and stuff and work our way up."

The
others all nodded in agreement. Kyle's argument, expressed in
his slow, deliberate style, made sense. "Plus we gotta plan for if things don't work out. So
each of us has to get an education first. That means a high school
diploma at the very least." He paused to glare at Katon who had a tendency
to favor any form of recreation over school work.

"What?
I do okay in school," said Katon, who typically managed to get B's, C's
and a stray D or two on his report cards.

"Yeah,
just barely," said Kyle. "And if you don't watch it, you're the one
going to be left home playing with your pud."

When
Kyle graduated from Mayville High in 1996, his father made a copy of his
diploma and proudly hung it in the front hallway, leaving room for two more.
"I expect you two boys'll do the same," he
said to Kelly and Katon as he explained the left over space on the wall. "Nothin'd make me prouder than to have three diplomas up
here for everyone to look at."

Despite
being successful as a studio musician, Ken Jedry had never finished high school
and considered a high school diploma a necessity for the success of his
children. He got his wish four years later when Katon became the third Jedry
brother to walk across the stage and accept a diploma from Mister Cannon, the
principal. "Congratulations," said Mister Canon, knowing that with
Katon Jedry, graduation had been anything but a certainty.

"Until
then we gotta practice," continued Kyle.
"Katon, you're a little flat on the vocals. Kelly, you need to check your
timing. Keep up with Jed on the beat. Jed, you need to slow it down just a bit
so Kelly can keep up. I think that's why he keeps getting behind. Lucas... " He paused, because, frankly, Lucas seldom needed
scolding when it came to music. "... Just keep doing what you're doing,
okay?"

There's
no way to know what might have happened if they'd stayed together. They were
good; there was no doubt about that. And with Mister Jedry's
help in the studio, there's a chance they would have gotten the breaks they
needed. But possibly the biggest obstacle to success as a
band is just staying together long enough to amount to anything more than a
high school novelty act. And that's what happened to JKLM. The band
slowly, but surely, disintegrated until there was nothing left but a memory.

Lucas
graduated from high school in 1995. With nothing better to do, and a desire to
stay close to Jed, he chose to get a two-year degree at a junior college near
Johnson City. It was a long drive each day, but his Uncle graciously kept the
rent on his trailer extremely low, making it better and more attractive than
moving to some place a little closer to college. He still had weekends free,
and he spent most of that time with Jed. Or at least as much
as he could.

There
was little time left in Lucas's life for things like band rehearsals, and so
the first crack began to appear in their dream of going on tour. With little
time to rehearse, they could never quite get the sound they needed to draw
bigger audiences, and without the bigger audiences, they were left doing small
weekend shows for little pay.

Jed
graduated two years later, on what for Lucas was one of the worst days he could
remember. What should have been a reason to sleep together, accompanied by
plenty of sex, ended up being a quiet little get-together at his Aunt and
Uncle's home in Mayville. Jed's parents were there
also. They had arrived from Provo, Utah earlier in the week, having returned
from their mission to Sweden a year before. Since Jed seemed to be doing so
well in Mayville, they decided to let him finish high school there rather than
go back to Utah for his last year of high school. "I know you'd rather
graduate from Mayville High than Provo High," his father said. And he was
right. Although Jedidiah King had lived most of his life in Utah, he thought of
Mayville, Tennessee as his adopted home.